[iwar] FW: Israel - Relations

From: Robert W. Miller (snooker3@mindspring.com)
Date: 2001-09-28 17:28:05
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___________________________________________________________________


                            S T R A T F O R

                    THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY

                        http://www.stratfor.com
___________________________________________________________________

						  28 September 2001

THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT - FULL TEXT FOR MEMBERS ONLY

  -> ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY FOR MEMBERS ONLY:

      * War Plan Part 5: Follow-On Theaters of Operation
      http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109282120.htm

      * Sea Change in U.S.-Israeli Relations
      http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109282300.htm

      * Russia to Spurn OPEC's Advances
      http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/commentary/0109282030.htm

      * Macedonia Struggles With Peace Deal
      http://www.stratfor.com/europe/commentary/0109282220.htm

___________________________________________________________________

War Plan Part 5: Follow-On Theaters of Operation

Summary

Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network wants to force the United 
States into launching simultaneous attacks on multiple Islamic 
countries. Such a reaction would diffuse U.S. forces and alienate 
the Islamic world. Washington has refused the gambit for now, but 
al-Qa'ida will likely try to create an Islamic threat in 
countries such as Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Analysis

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has been in the 
process of narrowing down the scope of its response. There was a 
substantial battle within the Bush administration, as well as 
between Washington and some of its allies, over who would be held 
responsible for the attack and how they would be dealt with. 

There were powerful forces that wanted to place Iraq in the same 
class as Afghanistan as a purposeful facilitator and even planner 
of the attack. Other less powerful factions put forward countries 
including Libya, Syria, Sudan and Pakistan.

There were good and bad arguments to be made for the 
responsibility of each. The Bush administration does not appear 
to have spent much time trying to sort out culpability at this 
stage. Instead, the guiding principle in designing a response 
strategy appears to be about political and military necessity:

1. An effective, as opposed to symbolic, offensive requires 
substantial time to mount. Desert Storm took six months for 
deployment and absorbed a substantial proportion of U.S. military 
capability. The mounting of combined, offensive, multiple and 
simultaneous air, land and sea operations is at least too 
dangerous and quite possibly impossible.

2. Building a cohesive coalition for operations against 
Afghanistan, and for an intercontinental covert war, would 
probably strain the limits of Washington's expected allies to 
participate in a widespread offensive against multiple Islamic 
countries. Nations indispensable to the coalition would opt out 
of a multi-theater conventional war.

3. Al-Qa'ida has posed this anti-terror campaign as a war between 
Islam and the rest of the world. Its fundamental goal has been to 
weld the Islamic world together into a single, cohesive entity. 
Simultaneous attacks against multiple, predominantly Muslim 
states would help create precisely the conditions that Osama bin 
Laden wants: a sense in the Islamic world that a state of war 
exists between it and the United States.

The United States therefore is devising a minimalist strategy, 
designed to protect North America from further attacks, disrupt 
and destroy al-Qa'ida globally and destroy the Taliban regime in 
Afghanistan. Washington wants to do all this without exposing 
U.S. forces to excessive casualties or over-committing 
conventional forces in a way that might imbalance U.S. global 
strategy and leave the United States vulnerable in other regions, 
including the Middle East.

This is not to say that the United States intends to disregard 
Iraq. Washington continues to see Baghdad as a primary adversary, 
and there remains some evidence that the Iraqis have worked with 
al-Qa'ida. There may well be other nations that the United States 
intends to target. 

However, the Bush administration appears to have made a 
fundamental strategic decision to deal with these other targets 
sequentially rather than simultaneously. Having had three 
theaters of operations forced on it by circumstance, the United 
States intends to create follow-on theaters of operation at the 
time and in the sequence that it chooses. 

There is an obvious exception to this strategy. The 
intercontinental theater is inherently unpredictable, and all 
nations fall within its scope. If in the course of these 
operations, it becomes possible to destabilize Saddam Hussein's 
regime in Iraq, or some of the other suspect regimes, the United 
States is likely to seize the opportunity. But apart from that 
scenario, the United States appears to be treating even Iraq as 
part of a follow-on theater of operations.

Al-Qa'ida's Strategy: Diffusing American Power

Obviously, al-Qa'ida expects heavy blows to fall on it and its 
Taliban allies. It intends to press the attack on the United 
States if possible and to survive the intercontinental and Afghan 
campaigns. The key to al-Qa'ida's survival is the operational and 
strategic diffusion of U.S. power: overwhelming the United States 
with too many real and illusory strategic challenges in other 
theaters.

On an operational level, al-Qa'ida is providing what appears to 
be a target-rich environment both within North American and 
intercontinentally. Endless, quite credible threats are being 
generated, a huge number of potential suspects are being 
identified and a tremendously complex set of linkages are being 
identified between al-Qa'ida and other groups and governments. 

Some are real, but many threats, suspects and relationships are 
self-generated. The psychological atmosphere created by al-Qa'ida 
on Sept. 11 created a hypersensitivity to any and all 
possibilities. 

The actual attack was so absurdly extraordinary that no 
reasonable person can any longer discount any threat. At the same 
time, it is reasonable to assume the attacking task force had as 
one of its missions planting false and confusing leads and the 
surviving ground support unit had a similar terminal mission. 

This combination of hypersensitivity and deliberate 
misinformation has inevitably diffused American power in all 
theaters, but particularly in the United States and 
intercontinentally. The goal of al-Qa'ida now is to play matador 
to the American bull, skillfully baffling the United States with 
a red cape of confusion and misinformation until the bull, 
exhausted, is ripe for another strike.

This desire to create operational diffusion is mirrored 
strategically. More than anything, al-Qa'ida wanted to see 
simultaneous attacks on multiple Islamic countries. That would 
achieve its two key strategic goals. 

First, exhaust the United States strategically as well as 
operationally, globally as well as locally, by forcing it to 
commit itself beyond its military abilities. Second, demonstrate 
to the Islamic world that the United States is indiscriminately 
hostile to Islam. This, coupled with growing American military 
exhaustion, would open the door to what al-Qa'ida wants most -- 
dealing U.S. power a decisive defeat in the Islamic world.

However, strategically the United States has declined the gambit. 
Operationally it is quite likely that as the war matures, U.S. 
security and intelligence will gain confidence and expertise in 
discriminating between genuine threats and facts and self-
generated or planted misinformation. The United States has 
refused to diffuse its power, choosing instead a sequential 
strategy. In effect, the United States has seized control of at 
least the strategic tempo of operations.

Al-Qa'ida clearly cannot permit this. Its strategy must be to 
disrupt the coalition at all levels and particularly within the 
Islamic world, where it must either create pressure on 
governments to change course or generate massive instability. 
From al-Qa'ida's standpoint, doing this will ideally not only 
change the course of Islamic governments but also create 
circumstances in which the United States has no choice but to 
intervene, preferably militarily.

The grand strategy of al-Qa'ida relies on the suspicion of the 
United States endemic among the Islamic masses, coupled with 
their sense that existing governments have failed not only 
religiously and morally but economically and socially as well. 
This tension between the masses and the elite and between 
religion and secularism is present throughout the Islamic world 
as it is in other parts of the world. But in the Islamic world 
today, there is a power to that equation that cannot be 
underestimated.

It would obviously be desirable from al-Qa'ida viewpoint if it 
could undermine any government and substitute an Islamic state. 
But there are three nations in particular that would pose a 
fundamental strategic challenge to the United States:

*  Pakistan: Pakistan is essential to the U.S. strategy against 
Afghanistan, and the fall of the Musharraf government -- 
particularly after U.S. forces were deployed throughout the 
country -- would force an intervention and endanger U.S. forces. 
Moreover, the victory of pro-bin Laden forces in Pakistan would 
place Pakistan's nuclear weapons in al-Qa'ida's hands. The United 
States could not permit this. Therefore, it would have to go to 
war in Pakistan, a war that would at least temporarily relieve 
pressure on the Taliban.

*  Indonesia: Indonesia cannot be ignored by the United States. 
Since 1997, the economic, social and political situation in 
Indonesia has been deteriorating rapidly. The precise power of 
fundamentalism within the overwhelmingly Muslim country is 
difficult to estimate. Nevertheless, such fundamentalism exists, 
along with massive discontent with current conditions. Indonesia 
is also fundamentally strategically important to the United 
States. Anything that could threaten free passage through the 
Straits of Malacca and Lombok is something that would have to be 
taken seriously. It would be an outstanding achievement for al-
Qa'ida if it could impose a fundamentalist government in Jakarta. 
But even failing that, creating a level of chaos in strategic 
areas of Indonesia, with any threat to maritime navigation, would 
compel the United States to divert either intelligence or 
military resources. 

*  Egypt: This is the center of gravity of the Arab world, in 
terms of population and economy. It is also the foundation of 
U.S. strategy in that world, and one of the sources of strength 
for bin Laden. Its Muslim Brotherhood, suppressed by President 
Hosni Mubarak following the massacres at Luxor, remains a 
potentially powerful force beneath the surface. Should an Islamic 
government emerge in Egypt, Israel would be forced to pre-empt 
militarily, retaking the Sinai. The United States would be caught 
in the same position it was in with the former Shah of Iran, 
supporting a toppling government that it could neither abandon 
nor save. An Islamic Egypt would change the entire architecture 
of the Arab and Islamic world.

There are other targets of opportunity. Algeria and the 
Philippines both have Islamic movements that could be exploited. 
But Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt represent targets that not only 
would be of value in themselves but also would entangle the 
United States and force it to diffuse its power.

There are a number of indications in all three countries that 
attempts are being made to stir the Islamic masses. It is not 
clear whether al-Qa'ida is involved, but it is also not necessary 
that al-Qa'ida take a direct hand in order to benefit. It's 
expected that al-Qa'ida has elements involved in all of these 
movements. 

During recent months, al-Qa'ida operatives have appeared in many 
countries, the United States included. It's likely they have been 
forming liaisons with indigenous Islamic political leaders who, 
if supplied with sufficient funds, might be in a position to 
destabilize or even overthrow regimes.

Conclusion

The United States is thinking in terms of a follow-on strategy in 
which it controls the tempo and sequence of operations. al-Qa'ida 
is hoping to impose a tempo of operations that, while not so much 
in its control, is still out of the control of the United States. 
It wants, above all else, to be able to force the United States 
to wage war in multiple Islamic states simultaneously. This would 
give bin Laden the political victory he wants in the Islamic 
world. It could also lead to an American defeat.

The United States shrewdly has declined al-Qa'ida's opening 
strategy. It has refused to diffuse its forces in multiple large-
scale military operations. This decision represents a serious 
defeat for bin Laden, who STRATFOR believes was counting on an 
American overreaction. In order to place his scenario back on 
track, he must create situations in which the United States 
cannot decline engagement, gambits the United States can neither 
refuse nor win.

If bin Laden can create, or have created for him, an Islamic 
threat of substantial proportions in either Pakistan, Indonesia 
or Egypt -- and more than one would be the ideal -- the United 
States would be forced to abandon its sequenced generation of 
theaters of operation and capitulate to simultaneous, poorly 
planned operations.

The alternative would be to abandon fundamental strategic 
interests, which would serve bin Laden equally well. Forcing an 
American retreat would create the atmosphere he wants within the 
Islamic world, an atmosphere in which American power appears 
broken and his brand of Islam triumphant.

Thus, there continue to be substantial dangers to the United 
States. In asymmetric warfare, it sometimes appears that the more 
powerful entity is in control of the situation at precisely the 
moment the situation is gyrating out of control. This is 
certainly what bin Laden wants to have happen. It is not clear 
that it will happen nor that he can make it happen. But it is 
clear that a good deal of the action will play itself out in 
places other than the three theaters of operation we have 
described and at a time not of America's choosing.
___________________________________________________________________


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